Technology and Innovation in the Hospitality industry

INTRODUCTION

There are innovations that do not advance from the different sources. The addition consistent from analysis, arrangement and harder plan is all that can be discussed and presented as the practice of innovation. But this is all that charge be presented back it absolutely covers at least 90% of all able innovations. And the amazing performer in innovation, as in every added area, will be able abandoned if ashore in the conduct and skill of it.

Purposeful, systematic innovations begin with the assay of the opportunities. It begins with cerebration through what I accept alleged the sources of avant-grade opportunities. In altered area, altered sources will accept altered accent at altered times.

It is said that ‘very few of us accept Leonardo’s ability or genius and can apprehend that our notebooks alone will assure immortality.’ Innovation is conceptual as well as perceptual. On this earth, we can see a lot of technology based minds about us who we as well accredit to as ‘techno-freaks’, but basically they are the sole acumen for the luxuries that we get these days! If Edison wouldn’t have had agitated about the absence of ablaze about him again he would never have had invented the bulb. Same goes with every individual invention and discovery that has taken abode in this world back time immemorial.

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Technology according to me is what keeps man going and enjoying what he does. If work has no interest left in it then the situation will come one day that everything will stop from developing and remain in the same place for ages. Hospitality industry is a sector which needs constant updating, in this industry we are in 24/7 contact with the guests so we need to cater their demands and give them the best services that can possibly be given. 5 of such major developments of technologies that has contributed to the operational efficiency of global hospitality industry are discussed further.

Chapter 2

Mobile Robots

2.1 Introduction:

There is a growing interest in applying different concepts and techniques in assistant robots these days. Due to the increasing work load all the major companies and the hoteliers expect to have sharers which should have a number of characteristics such as easy reconfiguration, anatomy, robust perception systems and most importantly the ability to interact with humans. Automatic hotel assistant systems are based on a number of principles that help in the interaction with guests and service personnels to perform different tasks. Accompanying the guests to their rooms, providing them with usual information, delivering small items to the guests and showing them different points of interest in the hotel are some of the aspects that we get to see in such robots. Each robot can as well apart handle some regular appointed tasks.

2.2 Working:

The robots can perform tasks based on the circumstances triggered by the buildings automation system (BAS) apart from the user generated and appointed tasks. A local network (Ethernet) connects the robots and the BAS to a central server. Creating and developing the system and testing it in different environments was done by Robotics Integrated Development Environment (RIDE).

Service robots were mostly advised as humanoid administration able of allowance bodies in altered means with sophisticated communication systems. Over the past few years a few acknowledged examples of account robots appeared on market.

These robots are chipped in the hotel building and affiliated to the central server via Wi-Fi. The guests can make a request for their need either by the terminal in their room or by directly interacting with the robot. From the terminal in their room, they can make a request for small items like newspapers or snacks. In this way the central server will receive the request made by the guests and thus decide which robot to send. While the robots are not working, they are connected to the charging stations. There is a task manager in the central server which will allocate the particular task to the robot else will queue it in case of unavailability. The robot will plan the work and move accordingly from the starting point which has the collection of the items asked for to the updating by the guest on the touch screen of the robot which indicates the end of the work i.e. the guest received his order. Further, the robot will check for the next task or else go back to the charging station.

2.3 Example:

Sacarino, is a type of a robot which interacts with the guests using its touchscreen and the Loquendo voice recognition system. This robot includes a chat box which provides more detailed things that include the restaurant’s schedule, location of the shops, weather forecast and about the services that the hotel provides. These adaptable robots are acclimated by Hotel Novotel in Valladolid (Spain).

2.4 Future scope:

According to the Uncanny Valley theory, robots should be made more human like in order to create a friendly atmosphere around so that the guests become increasingly positive and empathic towards the robot. Giving this human touch to the department of robotics will prove to be more beneficial in the near future.

Chapter 3

Airfare Forecasting Feature

3.1 About Kayak:

Kayak.com is a travel website which can be further stated as a travel metasearch engine operated by Kayak Software Corporation. On the 15th of January 2013 at 12.45 pm, kayak.com launched an airfare forecasting feature in its website which they believe will help the travellers make the right decision.

Kayak is not the first company to offer an airfare forecasting feature, in 2003, Farecast.com debuted an agnate concept, touting an all-embracing accurateness of about 75%, it was bought by Microsoft in 2008 which further became the base for Bing Travel. Kayak has two important aspects which makes it more efficient and powerful. The first one is the range of confidence level and the second one makes up the ability to initiate and develop new technologies to this feature due to the great financial horsepower which they inherited by the purchase of kayak by Priceline for $1.8 billion. Kayak is also superior in terms of tapping more information than what Bing actually does.

3.2 About the feature:

This feature anticipates weather the price will rise or fall with a confidence level in the divination over the next seven days. For instance, flights from A to B has 1200 flight options along with a graph showing the price trends and an inscription reading ‘price may rise in 7 days’ with a suggestion besides it as ‘book now’. Further clicking on the graph a set of information is revealed which talks about the price trend history over a particular period with the confidence level saying that the price may rise or fall within a certain approximation amount. Being a very useful tool, this feature of kayak has almost 1 billion searches annually.

3.3 Basis:

Kayak states that it developed the forecasts with the help of mathematical models and algorithms that are based on past pricing history from sources like online travel agents, wholesalers, low cost carriers and reservation systems.

3.4 AFF (Confidence level):

This tool of kayak covers roughly 50% of the searches for the flights done by the people on the site. The confidence level of this particular feature ranges from 55% to 95%. However high the confidence level is, no system can be 100% accurate so there is always a scope for error and improvement. Hence, kayak always tells their customers to book it if they see a good price.

3.5 Impact after usage:

After using this feature, the travellers are happy because it saves their time and helps them in every possible way. The prediction of rise/fall of the prices helps them make a better decision. In this way, not only Kayak is benefitted by getting an ample number of searches but also the customers are satisfied because of the fulfilment of their needs which primarily includes saving money!

Chapter 4

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)

4.1 Introduction:

Due of the increasing demands, there is an increase in the pollution as well as degradation of the natural things observed. The hotels are the prime places where we cannot compromise for luxury or even for the demand of the guests for that matter. In this case, the safeguarding of nature is almost impossible! For such a crisis Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) came up with a program in which the hotels would be rated according to their efficiency and the level of maintaining the green buildings and use the resources efficiently.

4.2 Criteria for certification:

Based on the location, environmental awareness and applications, construction and the designs of the buildings, the hotels are judged. The hotels eligible for this certificate have to share all the details of the energy and water used by them over a certain period of specified time. It is not at all easy to get through this. Only two hotels in US are certified by LEED till date.

4.3 Hotels in US certified by LEED:

They are Proximity Hotel in Greensboro, North Carolina and the Bardessono Hotel in Yountville, California.

4.4 The Bardessono:

The Bardessono, a boutique hotel in Napa Valley was given the LEED platinum certification by the US Green building council in 2010. This hotel uses a 200 kilowatt solar power system. There are about 947 solar panels mounted on the hotels flat roof top. These solar panels make the hotel almost invisible to the neighbours. There are geothermal systems installed along with these solar panels which provides cooling and heating to the rooms.

4.5 Impact and scope:

In order to get the LEED certification, the hotels have started adopting the different ways and applications of green technology. Water conservation which was the major issue since ages is now being taken under consideration. LEED contributes to the environmental safeguarding to a great extent thus giving the hotels a wider scope for developing in this area, developing the “green building” theory.

Chapter 5

Decision Support System

5.1 Introduction:

The awfully increasing number of allowance (hotel rooms) bookings are not alone intensifying the competition in the travel industry, but as well alert travel intermediates (i.e. e-companies that accumulate information about altered travel products from altered travel suppliers) into the fierce competition of travel products i.e. hotel rooms for the best prices. A GIS (Geographic Information System) based decision support system is used by hotels now-a-days that using essential location and hotel characteristics can predict objective rates of rooms of the hotel and anticipate temporal room rate prices. The temporal anticipation of room rates can be used for calibrating the cost of the future contract by examining the hotel room rate history.

5.2 Working:

DSS unites a widely used data mining framework that allocates access to many of ready to run algorithms that a domain expert uses and it presents the possibility of attaching new algorithms once they are matured. This system has been created and evaluated in co-operation with companies where travel technology solutions are generated, specifically catalogue management and costing solutions for many websites and travel agencies worldwide.

In DSS, by accessing all the required data from the corporate database, the analyst is able to choose the section of investigation. It permits him to add additional data that he thinks is significant in the analysis. Such data could be the things of interest around the hotels, availability of the transportation, historical places etc.

5.3 GIS:

The GIS technology was specifically used for estimating the distance between the properties and mapping (Sarip, 2005). GIS was segregated into an automated process for property valuation (Gracia et al., 2008) which allocates support in adjustment to ascribe and layer spatial data; to represent compound spatial relations; to examine spatial data and to show that data in the form of maps (Densham, 1991).

5.4 Models:

Two types of models form the basis of the GIS based decision support system viz., the one on hedonic pricing theory which is made up of the hotel’s intrinsic characteristics (amenities, facilities) and different locational characteristics (museums, restaurants) And the second model is made up of the historical room rates of the hotels.

Chapter 6

Streamlined RFP Technology

6.1 Introduction:

On the 14th of April, 2010, Cvent, a prime event provider of online event administration, website selection and event sourcing solutions, has extended its association with Hyatt by merging the Cvent Supplier Network, as electronic Request For Proposal (RFP) program for events and meetings, with Envision, a point of sale propriety sales application of Hyatt. After Hyatt experienced a substantial increase in group business RFP volume as an aftereffect of retailing its hotels on the Cvent Supplier Network, this technological affiliation was established in 2009. With the rush of group business leads being sent to Hyatt Hotels, an amalgamated solution was essential to seamlessly transform the RFP’s of Cvent to the in-house sales application at Hyatt.

6.2 Working:

This affiliation permits for a seamless shift of data between Cvent and Envision, so that all RFP’s directed to full service Hyatt properties via Cvent Suppliers Network will automatically arise in the Envision System, says the Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Cvent, Chuck Ghoorah.

Sales delegates at Hyatt will be able to review Cvent RFP’s inside the Envision database, accelerating the accuracy and reaction time in reproducing. The Envision database comprises data about guests and also the Hyatt hotel features which include guestrooms, banquet and meetings bookings and moreover the agendas for Hyatt properties globally.

6.3 Impact after usage:

With this integrating of the RFP program, the Hyatt properties can save a lot of time. They no longer have to go on Cvent every time to check for their bookings for events and meetings, these directly are transferred to their software, Envision, thus simplifying a lot of things.

Chapter 7

Summary

Technologies have always played a vital role in the development of mankind. They not only make people well upgraded but also quick paced in this competitive world. The good old days of simplicity are slowly fading away and all people want is the top most luxuries and facilities that anyone can ever get or even think about. Five of such technologies that have contributed to the operational efficiency in the global hospitality industry have been discussed above. This generation is supposed to be the time when all the ideas and the theories were to be converted into practical and it is happening likewise. The time is not far when technologies along with the applications and systems will overpower man. Then, the terms of luxury and comfort will have a different meaning altogether.